Page 9 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 10 -13

The Attorney-General: He made a deposition. 11146. (Mr. Duke.) I follow. (To the Witness.) You have told the Court that you said “It is up to us to go back”? - Yes. 11147. To whom did you say it? - Well, to the men who were in the boat. 11148. The men that were in the boat. Some of them were your own comrades on board the ship? - Yes, of course. 11149. You know the name of every one of them, do you not? - Pretty well now, yes. 11150. Tell me to what man or to what person in that boat did you at that time say, “It is up to us to go back”? - I never said it to anyone personally. 11151. Not to anyone personally? - Not personally, no; I called out. The Commissioner: He did not speak individually, but he spoke to all of them. The Attorney-General: I have the deposition. I will ask my friend if he has seen it. Mr. Duke: No, I have not seen it. The Attorney-General: I notice he says this upon the point you are now cross-examining to: “I proposed pulling in to pick up any who should be in the water after the ship sunk, but the passengers objected, and it was not done. We left the ship about 1. 30 a.m., remaining near other boats until the ‘Carpathia’ came up.” That is what he says about it in the depositions. The Commissioner: When was the deposition sworn? The Attorney-General: On the 25th. I am not sure whether it is the 25th or 28th April, on his return in the “Lapwing.” [Lapland] 11152. (Mr. Duke - To the Witness.) You had forgotten that? - Yes. 11153. Is not your memory pretty good? - It is not so bad, I think. 11154. Have you been a good deal badgered about this business from first to last? - What do you mean, badgered? 11155. Bothered about it; asked questions about it by all sorts of people? - Yes, everybody asked questions about the turn out and everything. 11156. Before the time you made that deposition had you said to anybody that Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon prevented that boat being put back? - Not to my knowledge, not before that time. 11157. From that time forward, or at any time until you named Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon in Court here last week, had you suggested that it was Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon who prevented that boat going back? - No, not to my knowledge; I had no cause to. 11158. Now, I was asking you what man in the boat you could name - or was intending to ask you - as a man who heard you, to your knowledge, say, “It is up to us to go back”? - I think Taylor was the nearest man to me in the boat. 11159. Was he on the same seat with you? - I think he was sitting alongside Sir Duff-Gordon. 11160 Did Taylor say anything to you? - Nothing at all; no one said anything. 11161. No one? - No one at all. 11162. No one said anything? - No. 11163. Do you mean that nobody said anything in answer to your suggestion? - He said it would be dangerous to go back; we should get swamped. 11164. Who? - Sir Duff-Gordon and Lady Duff-Gordon. 11165. To you? - I do not know whether it was to me. It was when I put this proposition to go back. 11166. The man you put the proposition to was Simmons? - No, any one at all; I called out for everyone to hear. 11167. The man to decide whether the boat should go back was Simmons, was it not? - Yes, he was the man in charge of the boat. 11168. Had everybody on that boat been perfectly obedient to his orders up to that time? - Yes. 11169. Was everybody on that boat perfectly obedient to his orders from that time? - Yes.